D.

The

From Newcastle, his lordship's route lay to Carlisle. Northumberland sheriff gave us all arms; that is, a dagger, knife, pen-knife, and fork, all together. And because the hideous road along by the Tyne, for the many and sharp turnings, and perpetual precipices, was for a coach not sustained by main force, impassable, his lordship was forced to take horse, and to ride most part of the way to Hexham. We were shewed where coal mines burnt underground; but could discern nothing of it, besides the deadness of all plants there. We were shewed the Picts' Wall, but it appeared only as a range or bank of stones all overgrown with grass, not unlike the bank of the Devil's Ditch at Newmarket, only without any hollow, and nothing near so big. Here his lordship saw the true image of a Border country. The tenants of the several manors are bound to guard the judges through their precinct; and out of it they would not go, no, not an inch, to save the souls of them. They were a comical sort of people, riding upon negs, as they call their small horses, with long beards, cloaks, and long broad-swords, with basket hilts, hanging in broad belts, that their legs and swords almost touched the ground; and every one in his turn, with his short cloak and other equipage, came up cheek by jowl, and talked with my lord judge. His lordship was very well pleased with their discourse; for they were great antiquarians in their own bounds.

North's Life of Lord Keeper Guilford, [temp. Car. ii.] i. 287.

E.

But that which is commonly sung of the Hunting of Cheviot seemeth indeed poetical, and a mere fiction, perhaps to stir up virtue, yet a fiction whereof there is no mention, either in the Scottish or English Chronicle. Neither are the songs that are made of them both one; for the Scots song made of Otterbourne, telleth the time, about Lammas; and also the occasion, to take preys out of England;

also the dividing armies betwixt the Earls of Fife and Douglas and their several journies, almost as in the authentic history. It beginneth thus:

"It fell about the Lammas tide,
When yeomen win their hay,
The dochty Douglas 'gan to ride,
In England to take a prey."

Godscroft, ed. Edin. 1743, i. 195.

Whoever considers the style and orthography of this old poem [Chevy Chace] will not be inclined to place it lower than the time of Henry VI.; as, on the other hand, the mention of JAMES THE SCOTTISH KING, with one or two anachronisms, forbid us to assign it an earlier date. King James I. who was prisoner in this kingdom at the death of his father, [who died Aug. 5, 1406, in the seventh year of our Henry IV.] did not wear the crown of Scotland till the second year of our Henry VI. [James I. was crowned May 22, 1424, murdered Feb. 21, 1436-7,] but before the end of that long reign, a third James had mounted the throne. [In 1460, Henry VI. was deposed, 1461, restored, and slain in 1471.] A succession of two or three Jameses, and the long detention of one of them in England would render the name familiar to the English, and dispose a poet in those rude times to give it to any Scottish king he happened to

mention.

So much for the date of this old ballad: with regard to its sub. ject, altho' it has no countenance from history, there is room to think it had originally some foundation in fact. It was one of the Laws of the Marches frequently renewed between the two nations, that neither party should hunt in the other's borders, without leave from the proprietors or their deputies." There had long been a rivalship between the two martial families of Percy and Douglas, which b Item... Concordatum est, quod, ... NULLUS unius partis vel alterius ingrediatur terras, boschas, forrestas, warrenas, loca, dominia quæcunque alicujus partis alterius subditi, causa venandi, piscaudi, aucupandi disportum aut solatium in eisdem, aliave quacunque de causa, ABSQUE LICENTIA ejus . . . . ad quem... loca pertinent, aut de deputatis suis prius capt. & obtent. Vid. Bp. Nicholson's Leges Marchiarum. 1705. 8vo. pag. 27. 51.

......

....

heightened by the national quarrel, must have produced frequent challenges and struggles for superiority, petty invasions of their respective domains, and sharp contests for the point of honour; which would not always be recorded in history. Something of this kind we may suppose gave rise to the ancient ballad of the HUNTING A' THE CHEVIAT. Percy earl of Northumberland had vowed to hunt for three days in the Scottish border without condescending to ask leave from earl Douglas, who was either lord of the soil, or lord warden of the marches. Douglas would not fail to resent the insult, aud endeavour to repel the intruders by force: this would naturally produce a sharp conflict between the two parties: some thing of which, it is probable, did really happen, tho' not attended with the tragical circumstances recorded in the ballad: for these are evidently borrowed from the BATTLE OF OTTERBOURN, very different event, but which aftertimes would easily confound with it. That battle might be owing to some such previous affront as this of CHEVY CHASE, though it has escaped the notice of historians. Our poet has evidently jumbled the two events together: if indeed the lines in which this mistake is made, are not rather spurious, and the afterinsertion of some person who did not distinguish between the two stories.-2nd Ed. Percy's Reliques, i. 2-4.

The ballad [Chevy Chace] published in the Reliques is avowedly an English production; and the author, with a natural partiality, leans to the side of his countrymen; yet that ballad, or some one similar, modified probably by national prejudice, must have been current in Scotland during the reign of James VI.

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, in Preface to the
Battle of Otterbourne.

The supposed subject of this ballad [Chevy Chace] being as honourable to the English as the real events of the battle of Otterburne were otherwise, Dr. Percy seems willing to support its authenticity; yet if he gives up its tragical circumstances, what will remain? But his conjecture that that battle might be owing to some previous

This was the original title.

affront, like Chevy Chace, involves a contradiction, unless he could get clear of the difficulty by supposing, as he does, with the lines :

O heavy newes, king James did say,

Scotland can witness be,

I have not any Captaine more

Of such account as he.

Lyke tydings to king Henry came
Within as short a space,

That Percy of Northumberland

Was slain in Chevy Chase.

that the names of the kings Henry IV. of England, and James of Scotland are an interpolation. The battle of Chevy Chase certainly could not precede that of Otterbourne, which was fought in 1388, eleven years before the reign of Henry IV., and there was no king James of Scotland till 1424, being the second year of Henry VI. of England. For though James I. become entitled to the crown in 1405, he was for the succeeding nineteen years, not at 'Edinborrowe,' but a prisoner in England. Indeed, the ballads of Chevy Chase, though dear to English feelings, admired by Sir Philip Sidney, and criticized by Addison, seem to have no foundation in fact, except so far as they coincide with the battle of Otterbourne; both the commencement and result of which were widely different.

F.

Mr. Ellis's MS.

I here copy the account of the fight from Richardson's Table Book, Div. Hist. i. 333.—sub. 22 Aug. 1701.

Mr. John Fenwick, of Rock, in Northumberland, stabbed Ferdinando Forster, esq., one of the representatives in parliament for that county, between the White Cross and a thorn tree, which stood at that time in Newgate-street, in Newcastle. The quarrel arose about some family matters at dinner, at the Black Horse Inn, near the White Cross, which was then the best inn in Newcastle." Fenwick

d Mr. Grainger in his improvements has pulled down this lun, and thrown its site into Clayton-street-west.-J. F.

challenged the other to fight, and as they went out, being behind Forster, he stabbed him in that situation. This happened during the assizes. Fenwick was hanged on the 25th of September following, at the White Cross, and all the gates of the town were shut during the execution, for fear of a rescue from the people of the North, with whom the name of Fenwick was held in great veneration. -Brand.

The following is from the late alderman Hornby's MS. notes to Brand.The account here given is entirely erroneous, as I think I have sufficient authority to say, from the information of several respectable old persons, who either lived at that time, or soon after, and of course likely to be much better informed of the truth than Mr. Brand ever had an opportunity of being. Indeed I make no scruple to add, that his account comes from something of a tradition handed down amongst low, vulgar, and uninformed persons. I shall take for my principal authority, the late Edward Collingwood, esq., recorder of Newcastle, who informed me that his father was present when the quarrel happened. The company consisted of the whole or part of the grand jury of Northumberland, and probably, during that state of conviviality which prevailed much on these occasions about that period, Mr. Fenwick came in singing a favourite party song, the burthen of which was "Sir John Fenwick's the flower amang them," this brought on some altercation betwixt him and Mr. Forster, but the company interfering, the matter was supposed to be quite settled. The next morning the parties met accidentally near the White Cross, the altercation was renewed, swords were drawn, and Mr. Forster killed. I have been told by other authorities, that Mr. Fenwick was taken in the garden behind Gallowgate or Sidgate, that at his execution the gates of the town were shut for fear of a rescue, and that he was hanged upon a piece of timber fixed betwixt the gaol and the gaoler's house. He was the owner of Kenton, where, and in the neighbourhood, collieries were then wrought, and the apprehension was from the pitmen.